A<\/span>ccording to the Protestant doctrine of imputation, Christ\u2019s righteousness is reckoned as righteousness to those who believe. Typically, this creates a double identity: Though we are in ourselves guilty sinners, God sees us in Christ, and therefore regards us and treats us as righteous.\n<\/p>\n It is often objected that imputation rests our standing with God on a legal fiction: Jesus is treated as guilty when He\u2019s not, and we are treated as just when we\u2019re not. Is that truthful? Existentially and pastorally, it leaves open a gap for doubt to slip in: God may say I\u2019m righteous, but I know the actual<\/em> truth of the matter, that I\u2019m a vile guilty sinner. Imputation of righteousness rests on a prior imputation of our sins to Jesus. Is that fair?\n<\/p>\n We might say: God does it, therefore it must be fair, truthful not fictional. But I believe that there\u2019s more to say. There are hints within the Levitical system that imputation is not a strange exception to the standard way of doing things. Rather, some act of imputation is at work in evaluating and judging any human action.\n<\/p>\n I have in mind the phrases \u201che shall bear his iniquity\u201d (Leviticus 7:18; 19:8) and \u201ctheir\/his blood on them\/him\u201d (Leviticus 20:9). The phrase implies that the blood must be on someone<\/em>. Free-floating blood is not an option. Either the person who committed the crime must bear responsibility, or the people who failed to carry out the punishment, or, in some cases, a substitutionary animal. It\u2019s always<\/em> necessary to assign responsibility.\n<\/p>\n These formulae presuppose a distinction between the act itself and the assignment of responsibility for the act. When a man takes his sister as a wife, he is \u201ccut off in the sight of the sons\u201d of Israel (Leviticus 20:17). In a number of the instances, this phrase refers to Yahweh\u2019s own act (17:10; 20:3, 8) and in other uses it refers to punishment for secret acts that only Yahweh could know (touching something unclean and eating a peace offering, for instance, in 7:21; or eating blood, 7:27; 17:10, 14). The passive is arguably a divine passive. In 20:17, the statement is followed by the declaration that he \u201cbears his guilt,\u201d which, in the context of (possibly) divine punishment implies that he bears his guilt because Yahweh has assigned it. The addition of \u201che bears his guilt\u201d seems unnecessary: If the wrong action attracted guilt to it \u201cimmediately,\u201d then the additional statement that \u201che bears his guilt\u201d is redundant. Of course<\/em> he bears his guilt; who else would? The fact that the phrase is included at all suggests that someone else might<\/em>, and thus suggests that the assignment of responsibility or guilt is distinct from the wrong action itself. In short, wrong acts must be judged <\/em>wrong.\n<\/p>\n There\u2019s a particular spin on this for capital crimes. A man has homosexual relations in ancient Israel, must, according to Torah, be put to death (Leviticus 20:13). He has committed a sexual crime, and must be punished. But his death leaves the land bloodstained, and that blood cannot be ignored. Somebody<\/em> has to pay for that blood. Normally, the person who sheds blood has to pay with his own blood, but the law says that the criminal who is executed pays for the blood of his death himself: His blood is on him, and not on the executioners. Perhaps the logic is that, since he committed a capital crime, he is treated as a self-murderer; his blood is shed by others, but he is treated as the one who sheds blood. Perhaps there\u2019s a kind of double jeopardy: The man dies once for two different wrongs \u2013 the wrong of his original sodomy and the wrong of shedding blood on the land. In any case, the Torah treats his bloodshed as if it were suicide \u2013 \u201chis blood is on him.\u201d\n<\/p>\n If there\u2019s always<\/em> an assignment of responsibility distinct from the wrong of the act itself, that leaves open the possibility that someone other<\/em> than the actor might bear that responsibility. It suggests the possibility that the iniquity might be \u201cimputed\u201d to another, to a sin-bearer. On this theory, \u201cimputation\u201d is not what happens when someone else<\/em> takes the guilt; imputation is necessary for any assignment of guilt, whether to the perpetrator or to someone else. Every sin and crime must be imputed in order to be punished, imputed to the criminal or to some substitute. Imputation isn\u2019t the assignment of guilt to another. It simply is<\/em> the assignment of guilt.\n<\/p>\n O<\/span>n individualist premises, if I act badly, I\u2019m simply guilty without any other action being taken by anyone. My guilt is simply mine. No one judges me guilty. No one assigns responsibility. My guilt is mine just as completely and immediately as the action itself. On the theory I\u2019m offering, guilt and responsibility are assigned socially\/theologically, that is, by others or another or Another. Liability to punishment is mine when it is reckoned<\/em> to me, and it might not<\/em> be, for various reasons (such as the incarnate Son joyfully assumed it for me). That assignment of responsibility is what guilt or innocence is<\/em>. Guilty or innocent, I am guilty or innocent in the regard<\/em> of the authorized judge\/Judge.\n<\/p>\n <\/span>On this theory, there is no \u201copen space\u201d for the legal fiction to occupy, no gap for faith to leak out of. There\u2019s no \u201creal inherent guilt\u201d that is cancelled or ignored in favor of an \u201cimputed righteousness.\u201d I am either guilty or not by virtue of God\u2019s assignment of responsibility, guilt, or innocence. His assignment of guilt or innocence simply is <\/em>my guilt or innocence, rather than something added to the \u201cinherent\u201d guilt or innocence of my action. Since He doesn\u2019t reckon my sins against me, I am innocent, full stop.\n<\/p>\n This snaps and locks the lid on the pastoral import of justification. If the ghost of legal fiction haunts God\u2019s imputation of righteousness, then I\u2019m uncertain about my standing. When God says \u201cyou\u2019re righteous,\u201d I object \u201cThat\u2019s nuts! I\u2019m the furthest thing from righteous.\u201d If my guilt itself is imputed, so is my righteousness. When He says I\u2019m righteous, it\u2019s over. When He says He\u2019s taking responsibility for my sin, it\u2019s over. There\u2019s no \u201creal guilt\u201d underlying that reckoning decision. If Jesus says \u201chis blood on My<\/em> head,\u201d that\u2019s where the blood goes. If He says, \u201cI<\/em> shall bear his guilt,\u201d then the only guilt there can possibly be has been taken from me.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to the Protestant doctrine of imputation, Christ\u2019s righteousness is reckoned as righteousness to those who believe. Typically, this creates a double identity: Though we are in ourselves guilty sinners, God sees us in Christ, and therefore regards us and treats us as righteous. It is often objected that imputation rests our standing with God […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[749,1020,938],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-imputation","category-justification","category-soteriology"],"yoast_head":"\n